Click it or ticket: NASCAR drivers have spotty driving records

Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2006

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Jimmie Johnson won't drive an inch unless everyone in his passenger car is wearing their seatbelt. It's a rule he didn't learn in a race car, however, where fender-benders happen at 190 mph. It's a rule he learned after getting a ticket from the California Highway Patrol.

While the drivers in this Sunday's Daytona 500 like to be considered the best in the world, most of them admit to having gotten tickets. In fact, everyone in last year's Chase for the Championship admitted to getting at least one ticket on public roads.

Some, like Kurt Busch's speeding citation last November in Phoenix, create a lot of attention. Busch was the defending NASCAR Nextel Cup Series champion, but he got caught driving 60 mph through a stop sign, passing in a no-passing zone and following too closely near the Phoenix International Speedway.

Jack Roush fired him for the last two races last year; the Phoenix courts gave him community service.

"I have learned many lessons from the situation and one of them is that speeding should be saved for the racetrack," Busch said.

It's a lesson most drivers learned the hard way - and continue to learn.

Defending series champion Tony Stewart has a reputation with several police departments for driving fast. His first ticket came when he was a teenager. He has survived a serious crash and was caught speeding in a Ferrari by an Ormond Beach police officer near the Daytona International Speedway in 2003. He got out of that ticket by posing for a picture with the officer, something that earned the officer a reprimand.

"My first ticket was in a 1979 Plymouth Volare, white with a blue Vinyl top with worn out shocks in the front," Stewart said. "I was doing 95 in a 55-mph zone and the county sheriff in Shelby County (Ind.) caught me."

That ticket came two weeks after he got his driver's license.

Stewart also survived a horrific crash. He flipped his car with he was 15, sending a girl passenger to the hospital for back surgery.

Scott Wimmer was cited for drunk driving after crashing his truck on New Year's Eve two years ago.

Robbie Moroso was killed in a drunken driving-related head-on crash on Sept. 30, 1990, a year after he won the Busch Series championship. That crash also killed a woman in the other car.

Bump-drafting, a practice of rear-ending the lead car to push it through, has become a big story heading into last Sunday's race at the Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR was so concerned about the aggressive driving it has created no-bumping zones in the corners to reduce the risk of an accident.

For Richard Petty, bump-drafting already has proven costly. It cost him an election.

He was cited for bumping a car from behind Sept. 11, 1996, on Interstate 85 after it wouldn't move out of the left lane. The ticket came when Petty was running for North Carolina's Secretary of State.

A poll conducted by the Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research group said Petty was in a virtual tie with Elaine Marshall before he got the ticket near Salisbury, N.C. He wound up losing the election.

At the time Petty, a Republican, said the Democratic-dominated state house turned it into a national story.

Busch said the reason the Maricopa (Ariz.) County Sheriff's Department made an issue of his citation - the office conducted press briefs and originally claimed Busch may have been drunk - was his celebrity status. The police waited two days - after the Nextel Cup Series left town - to say Busch wasn't drunk.

"I never asked the officer if he knew who I was or anything like that," Busch said. "They gave me a field sobriety test where I had to touch my nose and walk the line and all that, and I passed. Then they threw me against the car and handcuffed me."

Truck champion Ted Musgrave, now 50, has been able to hide his first speeding ticket from his parents for 34 years. He skipped school to attend traffic court and that got him in trouble. But the punishment for that was far less severe than explaining a ticket.

Johnson said his wife Chandra doesn't like riding with him after a race, even after winning Sunday's Daytona 500. He has a habit of tailgating and cutting people off, treating the neighborhood traffic like it was the last lap of the 500 when he had to hold off a charge by Casey Mears and Ryan Newman.

"Right after the race is when it's the worst," he said. "She hates riding with me. I'm still filled with adrenaline. And I really hate it when I'm in the fast lane and I can't pass cars.

"I think we're all good drivers," Johnson said. "We do things in a (passenger) car that scares some people, but it's normal for us. Would I ride with one of our drivers? Sure."